Einsatzgruppen (German For "Task Forces"

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einsatzgruppen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Einsatzgruppen (German for "task forces",[1] "deployment

groups";[2] singular Einsatzgruppe; official full name
Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD) were
Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi
Germany that were responsible for mass killings, primarily
by shooting, during World War II. The Einsatzgruppen were
involved in the murder of much of the intelligentsia and
cultural elite of Poland, and had an integral role in the
implementation of the Final Solution of the Jewish question
(Die Endlsung der Judenfrage) in territories conquered by
Nazi Germany. Almost all of the people they killed were
civilians, beginning with the intelligentsia and swiftly
progressing to Soviet political commissars, Jews, and
Gypsies throughout Eastern Europe.
Under the direction of Reichsfhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler
and the supervision of SS-Obergruppenfhrer Reinhard
Heydrich, the Einsatzgruppen operated in territories occupied
by the German armed forces following the invasion of Poland
in September 1939 and Operation Barbarossa (the invasion of
the Soviet Union) in June 1941. The Einsatzgruppen worked
hand-in-hand with the Orpo Police Battalions on the Eastern
Front to carry out operations ranging from the murder of a
few people to operations which lasted over two or more days,
such as the massacre at Babi Yar with 33,771 Jews killed in
two days, and the Rumbula massacre (with about 25,000
killed in two days of shooting). As ordered by Nazi leader
Adolf Hitler, the Wehrmacht cooperated with the
Einsatzgruppen and provided logistical support for their
operations. Historian Raul Hilberg estimates that between
1941 and 1945 the Einsatzgruppen and related auxiliary
troops killed more than two million people, including 1.3
million Jews. The total number of Jews murdered during the
Holocaust is estimated at 5.5 to 6 million people.
After the close of World War II, 24 senior leaders of the
Einsatzgruppen were prosecuted in the Einsatzgruppen Trial
in 194748, charged with crimes against humanity and war
crimes. Fourteen death sentences and two life sentences were
handed out. Four additional Einsatzgruppe leaders were later
tried and executed by other nations.
Einsatzgruppen
The Einsatzgruppen operated under the

administration of the Schutzstaffel (SS)
Killing of Jews at Ivanhorod, Ukraine, 1942. A

woman is attempting to protect a child with her own
body just before they are fired on with rifles at
close range.
Agency overview
Formed
Preceding
c. 1939
Einsatzkommando
agency
Jurisdiction
Nazi Germany
Occupied Europe
Headquarters RSHA, Prinz-Albrecht-Strae,

Berlin
523026N 132257E
Employees
~ 3,000 c. 1941
Minister
responsible
Heinrich Himmler,
Reichsfhrer-SS
Agency
executives
SS-Obergruppenfhrer
Reinhard Heydrich,
Director, RSHA
(19391942)
SS-Obergruppenfhrer Dr.
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Ernst Kaltenbrunner,
Director, RSHA
(19431945)
1 Formation and Action T4

2 Invasion of Poland
3 Preparations for Operation Barbarossa
3.1 Organisation starting in 1941
4 Killings in the Soviet Union
4.1 Babi Yar
5 Killings in the Baltic states
5.1 Rumbula
6 Second Sweep
7 Transition to gassing
8 Plans for the Middle East and Britain
9 Jger Report
10 Involvement of the Wehrmacht
11 Einsatzgruppen Trial
12 See also
13 References
13.1 Citations
13.2 Books and journal articles
13.3 Online sources
14 Further reading
15 External links
Parent agency
Allgemeine SS and RSHA
The Einsatzgruppen were formed under the direction of SS-Obergruppenfhrer Reinhard Heydrich and
operated by the Schutzstaffel (SS) before and during World War II.[3] The Einsatzgruppen had its origins in the
ad hoc Einsatzkommando formed by Heydrich to secure government buildings and documents following the
Anschluss in Austria in March 1938.[4] Originally part of the Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police; SiPo), two
units of Einsatzgruppen were stationed in the Sudetenland in October 1938. When military action turned out not
to be necessary because of the Munich Agreement, the Einsatzgruppen were assigned to confiscate government
papers and police documents. They also secured government buildings, questioned senior civil servants, and
arrested as many as 10,000 Czech communists and German citizens.[5][4] From September 1939, the
Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Main Security Office; RSHA) had overall command of the
Einsatzgruppen.[6]
As part of the drive to remove undesirable elements from the German population, from September to December
1939 the Einsatzgruppen and others took part in Action T4, a programme of systematic murder of the physically
and mentally handicapped and psychiatric hospital patients undertaken by the Nazi regime. Action T4 mainly
took place from 1939 to 1941, but continued until the end of the war. Initially the victims were shot by the
Einsatzgruppen and others, but gas chambers were put into use by spring 1940.[7]
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In response to Fhrer und Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler's plan to invade

Poland, Heydrich re-formed the Einsatzgruppen to travel in the wake of
the German armies.[8] Membership at this point was drawn from the SS,
the Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service; SD), and the police.[9] Heydrich
placed SS-Obergruppenfhrer Werner Best in command, who chose
leaders for the task forces and their subgroups, called
Einsatzkommandos, from among educated people with military
experience. Some had previously been members of paramilitary groups
such as the Freikorps.[10]
Execution of Poles in Krnik, 20

October 1939
Numbering some 2,700 men at this point,[10] the Einsatzgruppen's

mission was the forceful de-politicisation of the Polish people and the elimination of groups most clearly
identified with Polish national identity: the intelligentsia, members of the clergy, teachers, and members of the
nobility.[9][11] As stated by Hitler: "... there must be no Polish leaders; where Polish leaders exist they must be
killed, however harsh that sounds".[12] The Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen lists of people to be killed had
been drawn up by the SS as early as May 1939.[9] The Einsatzgruppen performed these murders with the
support of the Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz, a paramilitary group consisting of ethnic Germans living in
Poland.[13] Members of the SS, the Wehrmacht, and the Ordnungspolizei (Order Police; Orpo) also shot
civilians during the Polish campaign.[14] Approximately 65,000 civilians were killed by the end of 1939. In
addition to leaders of Polish society, they killed Jews, prostitutes, Romani people, and the mentally ill.
Psychiatric patients in Poland were initially killed by shooting, but by spring 1941 gas vans were widely
used.[15][16]
Seven Einsatzgruppen of battalion strength operated in Poland. Each was subdivided into four
Einsatzkommandos of company strength.[17]
Einsatzgruppe I, commanded by SS-Standartenfhrer Bruno Streckenbach, acted with 14th Army
Einsatzgruppe II, SS-Obersturmbannfhrer Emanuel Schfer, acted with 10th Army
Einsatzgruppe III, SS-Obersturmbannfhrer und Regierungsrat Dr. Herbert Fischer, acted with 8th Army
Einsatzgruppe IV, SS-Brigadefhrer Lothar Beutel, acted with 4th Army
Einsatzgruppe V, SS-Standartenfrer Ernst Damzog, acted with 3rd Army
Einsatzgruppe VI, SS-Oberfhrer Erich Naumann, acted in Wielkopolska
Einsatzgruppe VII, SS-Obergruppenfhrer Udo von Woyrsch and SS-Gruppenfhrer Otto Rasch, acted in
Upper Silesia and Cieszyn Silesia[17]
Though they were formally under the command of the army, the Einsatzgruppen received their orders directly
from Heydrich and for the most part acted independently of the army.[18][19] Many senior army officers were
only too glad to leave these genocidal actions to the task forces, as the killings violated the rules of warfare as
set down in the Geneva Conventions. However, Hitler had decreed that the army would have to tolerate and
even offer logistical support to the Einsatzgruppen when it was tactically possible to do so. Some army
commanders complained about unauthorised shootings, looting, and rapes committed by members of the
Einsatzgruppen and the Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz, to little effect.[20] For example, when Generaloberst
Johannes Blaskowitz sent a memorandum of complaint to Hitler about the atrocities, Hitler dismissed his
concerns as "childish", and Blaskowitz was relieved of his post in May 1940. He continued to serve in the army
but never received promotion to field marshal.[21]
The final task of the Einsatzgruppen in Poland was to round up the remaining Jews and concentrate them in
ghettos within major cities with good railway connections. The intention was to eventually remove all the Jews
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from Poland, but at this point their final destination had not yet been determined.[22][23] Together, the
Wehrmacht and the Einsatzgruppen also drove tens of thousands of Jews eastward into Soviet-controlled
territory.[14]
On 13 March 1941, in the lead-up to Operation Barbarossa, the planned invasion of the Soviet Union, Hitler
dictated his "Guidelines in Special Spheres re: Directive No. 21 (Operation Barbarossa)". Sub-paragraph B
specified that Reichsfhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler would be given "special tasks" on direct orders from the
Fhrer, which he would carry out independently.[24] This directive was intended to prevent friction between the
Wehrmacht and the SS in the upcoming offensive.[24] Hitler also specified that criminal acts against civilians
perpetrated by members of the Wehrmacht during the upcoming campaign would not be prosecuted in the
military courts, and thus would go unpunished.[25]
In a speech to his leading generals on 30 March 1941, Hitler described his envisioned war against the Soviet
Union. General Franz Halder, the Army's Chief of Staff, described the speech:
Struggle between two ideologies. Scathing evaluation of Bolshevism, equals antisocial criminality.
Communism immense future danger ... This a fight to the finish. If we do not accept this, we shall
beat the enemy, but in thirty years we shall again confront the Communist foe. We don't make war
to preserve the enemy ... Struggle against Russia: Extermination of Bolshevik Commissars and of
the Communist intelligentsia ... Commissars and GPU personnel are criminals and must be treated
as such. The struggle will differ from that in the west. In the east harshness now means mildness for
the future.[26]
Though General Halder did not record any mention of Jews, German historian Andreas Hillgruber argued that
because of Hitler's frequent contemporary statements about the coming war of annihilation against "JudeoBolshevism", his generals would have understood Hitler's call for the destruction of the Soviet Union as also
comprising a call for the destruction of its Jewish population.[26] The genocide was often described using
euphemisms such as "special tasks" and "executive measures"; Einsatzgruppe victims were often described as
having been shot while trying to escape.[27] In May 1941 Heydrich verbally passed on the order to kill the
Soviet Jews to the SiPo NCO School in Pretzsch, where the commanders of the reorganised Einsatzgruppen
were being trained for Operation Barbarossa.[28] In spring 1941, Heydrich and the First Quartermaster of the
Wehrmacht Heer, General Eduard Wagner, successfully completed negotiations for co-operation between the
Einsatzgruppen and the German Army to allow the implementation of the "special tasks".[29] Following the
Heydrich-Wagner agreement on 28 April 1941, Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch ordered that when
Operation Barbarossa began, all German Army commanders were to immediately identify and register all Jews
in occupied areas in the Soviet Union, and fully co-operate with the Einsatzgruppen.[30]
In further meetings held in June 1941 Himmler outlined to top SS leaders the regime's intention to reduce the
population of the Soviet Union by 30 million people, not only through direct killing of those considered racially
inferior, but by depriving the remainder of food and other necessities of life.[31]
Organisation starting in 1941

For Operation Barbarossa, initially four Einsatzgruppen were created, each numbering 500990 men to
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comprise a total force of 3,000.[32] Einsatzgruppen A, B, and C were to be attached to Army Groups North,
Centre, and South; Einsatzgruppe D was assigned to the 11th Army. The Einsatzgruppe for Special Purposes
operated in eastern Poland starting in July 1941.[32] The Einsatzgruppen were under the control of the RSHA,
headed by Heydrich and later by his successor, SS-Obergruppenfhrer Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Heydrich gave
them a mandate to secure the offices and papers of the Soviet state and Communist Party; to liquidate all the
higher cadres of the Soviet state; and to instigate and encourage pogroms against Jewish populations.[33] The
men of the Einsatzgruppen were recruited from the SD, Gestapo, Kriminalpolizei (Kripo), Orpo, and WaffenSS.[32] Each Einsatzgruppe was under the operational control of the Higher SS Police Chiefs in its area of
operations.[30] In May 1941 General Wagner and SS-Brigadefhrer Walter Schellenberg agreed that the
Einsatzgruppen in front-line areas were to operate under army command, while the army provided the
Einsatzgruppen with all necessary logistical support.[34]
Heydrich acted under orders from Reichsfhrer-SS Himmler, who supplied
security forces on an "as needed" basis to the local SS and Police Leaders.[3]
Led by SD, Gestapo, and Kripo officers, Einsatzgruppen included recruits from
the Orpo, Security Service and Waffen-SS, augmented by uniformed volunteers
from the local auxiliary police force.[35] Each Einsatzgruppe was supplemented
with a reserve battalion of Orpos and Waffen-SS as well as support personnel
such as drivers and radio operators.[32] On average, the Orpo formations were
larger and better armed, with heavy machine-gun detachments, which enabled
them to carry out operations beyond the capability of the SS.[35] Each death
squad followed an assigned army group as they advanced into the Soviet
Union.[36] During the course of their operations, the Einsatzgruppen
commanders received assistance from the Wehrmacht.[36] Activities ranged from
Otto Rasch photographed by
the murder of targeted groups of individuals named on carefully prepared lists,
Allied forces at the
to joint city-wide operations with SS Einsatzgruppen which lasted for two or
more days, such as the massacres at Babi Yar, perpetrated by the Orpo Reserve
Nuremberg Trials, circa
Battalion 45, and at Rumbula, by Battalion 22, reinforced by local
1948
[37][38]
Schutzmannschaften (auxiliary police).
The SS brigades, wrote historian
Christopher Browning, were "only the thin cutting edge of German units that became involved in political and
racial mass murder."[39]
Many Einsatzgruppe leaders were highly educated; for example, nine of seventeen leaders of Einsatzgruppe A
held doctorate degrees.[40] Three Einsatzgruppen were commanded by holders of doctorates, one of whom
(SS-Gruppenfhrer Otto Rasch) held a double doctorate.[41]
Additional Einsatzgruppen were created as additional territory was conquered. Einsatzgruppe E operated in
Independent State of Croatia under three commanders, SS-Obersturmbannfhrer Ludwig Teichmann,
SS-Standartenfhrer Gnther Herrmann, and lastly SS-Standartenfhrer Wilhelm Fuchs. The unit was
subdivided into five Einsatzkommandos located in Vinkovci, Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Knin, and Zagreb.[42][43]
Einsatzgruppe F worked with Army Group South.[43] Einsatzgruppe G operated in Romania, Hungary, and
Ukraine, commanded by SS-Standartenfhrer Dr. Josef Kreuzer.[42] Einsatzgruppe H was assigned to
Slovakia.[44] Einsatzgruppen K and L, under SS-Oberfhrer Dr. Emanuel Schfer and SS-Standartenfhrer Dr.
Ludwig Hahn, worked alongside 5th and 6th Panzer Armies during the Ardennes offensive.[45] Hahn had
previously been in command of Einsatzgruppe Griechenland in Greece.[46]
Other Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos included Einsatzgruppe Iltis (operated in Carinthia, on the border
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between Slovenia and Austria) under SS-Standartenfhrer Paul Blobel,[47] Einsatzgruppe Jugoslawien
(Yugoslavia)[48] Einsatzkommando Luxemburg (Luxembourg),[43] Einsatzgruppe Norwegen (Norway)
commanded by SS-Oberfhrer Dr. Franz Walter Stahlecker,[49] Einsatzgruppe Serbien (Yugoslavia) under
SS-Standartenfhrer Wilhelm Fuchs and SS-Gruppenfhrer August Meysner,[50] Einsatzkommando Tilsit
(Lithuania, Poland),[51] and Einsatzgruppe Tunis (Tunis), commanded by SS-Obersturmbannfhrer Walter
Rauff.[52]
After the invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, the Einsatzgruppen's main assignment was to kill
civilians, as in Poland, but this time its targets specifically included Soviet Communist Party commissars and
Jews.[33] In a letter dated 2 July 1941 Heydrich communicated to his SS and Police Leaders that the
Einsatzgruppen were to execute all senior and middle ranking Comintern officials; all senior and middle
ranking members of the central, provincial, and district committees of the Communist Party; extremist and
radical Communist Party members; people's commissars; and Jews in party and government posts. Open-ended
instructions were given to execute "other radical elements (saboteurs, propagandists, snipers, assassins,
agitators, etc.)." He instructed that any pogroms spontaneously initiated by the occupants of the conquered
territories were to be quietly encouraged.[53]
On 8 July, Heydrich announced that all Jews were to be regarded as partisans, and gave the order for all male
Jews between the ages of 15 and 45 to be shot.[54] On 17 July Heydrich ordered that the Einsatzgruppen were to
kill all Jewish Red Army prisoners of war, plus all Red Army prisoners of war from Georgia and Central Asia,
as they too might be Jews.[55] Unlike in Germany, where the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 defined as Jewish
anyone with at least three Jewish grandparents, the Einsatzgruppen defined as Jewish anyone with at least one
Jewish grandparent; in either case, whether or not the person practised the religion was irrelevant.[56] The unit
was also assigned to exterminate Romani people and the mentally ill. It was common practice for the
Einsatzgruppen to shoot hostages.[57]
As the invasion began, the Germans pursued the fleeing Red Army,
leaving a security vacuum. Reports surfaced of Soviet guerrilla activity
in the area, with local Jews immediately suspected of collaboration.
Heydrich ordered his officers to incite anti-Jewish pogroms in the newly
occupied territories.[58] Pogroms, some of which were orchestrated by
the Einsatzgruppen, broke out in Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine.[59]
Within the first few weeks of Operation Barbarossa, 40 pogroms led to
the deaths of 10,000 Jews, and by the end of 1941 some 60 pogroms had
A teenage boy stands beside his
taken place, claiming as many as 24,000 victims.[59][60] However,
murdered family shortly before his
SS-Brigadefhrer Franz Walter Stahlecker, commander of
own death by the SS. Zboriv,
Einstazgruppe A, reported to his superiors in mid-October that the
Ukraine, 5 July 1941
residents of Kaunas were not spontaneously starting pogroms, and secret
assistance by the Germans was required.[61] A similar reticence was
noted by Einsatzgruppe B in Russia and Belarus and Einsatzgruppe C in Ukraine; the further east the
Einsatzgruppen travelled, the less likely the residents were to be prompted into killing their Jewish
neighbours.[62]
All four main Einsatzgruppen took part in mass shootings from the early days of the war.[63] Initially the targets
were adult Jewish men, but by August the net had been widened to include women, children, and the
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elderlythe entire Jewish population. Initially there was a semblance of legality given to the shootings, with
trumped-up charges being read out (arson, sabotage, black marketeering, or refusal to work, for example) and
victims being killed by a firing squad. As this method proved too slow, the Einsatzkommandos began to take
their victims out in larger groups and shot them next to, or even inside, mass graves that had been prepared.
Some Einsatzkommandos started to use automatic weapons, with survivors being killed with a pistol shot.[64]
As word of the massacres got out, many Jews fled; in Ukraine, 70 to 90 per cent of the Jews ran away. This was
seen by the leader of Einsatzkommando VI as beneficial, as it would save the regime the costs of deporting the
victims further east over the Urals.[65] In other areas the invasion was so successful that the Einsatzgruppen had
insufficient forces to immediately kill all the Jews in the conquered territories.[66] A situation report from
Einsatzgruppe C in September 1941 noted that not all Jews were members of the Bolshevist apparatus, and
suggested that the total elimination of Jewry would have a negative impact on the economy and the food supply.
The Nazis began to round their victims up into concentration camps and ghettos and rural districts were for the
most part rendered Judenfrei (free of Jews).[67] Jewish councils were set up in major cities and forced labour
gangs were established to make use of the Jews as slave labour until they were totally eliminated, a goal that
was postponed until 1942.[68]
Einsatzgruppen used public hangings as a terror tactic on the local population. An Einsatzgruppe B report, dated
9 October 1941, described one such hanging. Due to suspected partisan activity near Demidov, all male
residents aged 15 to 55 were put in a camp to be screened. The screening produced seventeen people identified
as "partisans" and "Communists". Five members of the group were hanged while 400 local residents were
assembled to watch; the rest were shot.[69]
Babi Yar
The largest mass shooting perpetrated by the Einsatzgruppen took place on 29 and 30 September 1941 at Babi
Yar, a ravine northwest of Kiev, a city in Ukraine that had fallen to the Germans on 19 September.[70][71] The
perpetrators included a company of Waffen-SS attached to Einsatzgruppe C under Rasch, members of
Sonderkommando 4a under SS-Obergruppenfhrer Friedrich Jeckeln, and some Ukrainian auxiliary police.[72]
The Jews of Kiev were told to report to a certain street corner on 29 September; anyone who disobeyed would
be shot. Since word of massacres in other areas had not yet reached Kiev and the assembly point was near the
train station, they assumed they were being deported. People showed up at the rendezvous point in large
numbers, laden with possessions and food for the journey.[73]
After being marched two miles north-west of the city centre, the victims encountered a barbed wire barrier and
numerous Ukrainian police and German troops. Thirty or forty people at a time were told to leave their
possessions and were escorted through a narrow passageway lined with soldiers brandishing clubs. Anyone who
tried to escape was beaten. Soon the victims reached an open area, where they were forced to strip, and then
were herded down into the ravine. People were forced to lie down in rows on top of the bodies of other victims,
and they were shot in the back of the head or the neck by members of the execution squads.[74]
The murders continued for two days, claiming a total of 33,771 victims.[71] Sand was shovelled and bulldozed
over the bodies and the sides of the ravine were dynamited to bring down more material.[75] Anton Heidborn, a
member of Sonderkommando 4a, later testified that three days later that there were still people alive among the
corpses. Heidborn spent the next few days helping smooth out the "millions" of banknotes taken from the
victims' possessions.[76] The clothing was taken away, destined to be re-used by German citizens.[75] Jeckeln's
troops shot more than 100,000 Jews by the end of October.[71]
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Einsatzgruppe A operated in the formerly Soviet-occupied Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
According to its own reports to Himmler, Einsatzgruppe A killed almost 140,000 people in the five months
following the invasion: 136,421 Jews, 1,064 Communists, 653 people with mental illnesses, 56 partisans, 44
Poles, five Gypsies, and one Armenian were reported killed between 22 June and 25 November 1941.[77]
Upon entering Kaunas, Lithuania, on 25 June 1941, the Einsatzgruppe released the criminals from the local jail
and encouraged them to join the pogrom which was underway.[78] Between 2327 June 1941, 4,000 Jews were
killed on the streets of Kaunas and in nearby open pits and ditches.[79] Particularly active in the Kaunas pogrom
was the so-called "Death Dealer of Kaunas", a young man who murdered Jews with a crowbar at the Lietukis
Garage before a large crowd that cheered each killing with much applause; he occasionally paused to play the
Lithuanian national anthem "Tautika giesm" on his accordion before resuming the killings.[79][80]
As Einsatzgruppe A advanced into Lithuania, it actively recruited local nationalists and antisemitic groups. In
July 1941, members of the Baltaraisciai movement joined the massacres.[60] A pogrom in Riga in early July
killed 400 Jews. Latvian nationalist Viktors Arjs and his supporters undertook a campaign of arson against
synagogues.[81] On 2 July, Einsatzgruppe A commander Stahlecker appointed Arjs to head the Arajs
Kommando,[60] a Sonderkommando of about 300 men, mostly university students. Together, Einsatzgruppe A
and the Arjs Kommando killed 2,300 Jews in Riga on 67 July.[81] Within six months, Arjs and his men
would kill about half of Latvia's Jewish population.[82]
Local officials, the Selbstschutz, and the Hilfspolizei (Auxiliary Police) played a key role in rounding up and
massacring Jewish Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians.[83] These groups helped the Einsatzgruppen and other
killing units to quickly identify Jews.[83] The Hilfspolizei, consisting of auxiliary police organised by the
Germans and recruited from former Latvian Army and police officers, ex-Aizsargi, members of the
Prkonkrusts, and university students, assisted in the murder of Latvia's Jewish citizens.[82] Similar units were
created elsewhere, and provided much of the manpower for the Holocaust in Eastern Europe.[84]
With the creation of units such as the Arjs Kommando, the Rollkommando Hamann in Lithuania, and the
Omakaitse militia in Estonia,[85] the attacks changed from the spontaneous mob violence of the pogroms to
more systematic massacres.[82] With extensive local help, Einsatzgruppe A was the first Einsatzgruppe to
attempt to systematically exterminate all the Jews in its area.[86][83] Latvian historian Modris Eksteins wrote:
Of the roughly 83,000 Jews who fell into German hands in Latvia, not more than 900 survived; and
of the more than 20,000 Western Jews sent into Latvia, only some 800 lived through the
deportation until liberation. This was the highest percentage of eradication in all of Europe.[87]
In late 1941, the Einsatzkommandos settled into headquarters in Kovno, Riga, and Tallinn. Einsatzgruppe A
grew less mobile and faced problems because of its small size. The Germans relied increasingly on the Arjs
Kommando and similar groups to perform massacres of Jews.[85]
Such extensive and enthusiastic collaboration with the Einsatzgruppen has been attributed to several factors.
Since the Russian Revolution of 1905, the Kresy Wschodnie and other borderlands had experienced a political
culture of violence.[88] The period of Soviet rule had been profoundly traumatic for residents of the Baltic states
and areas that had been part of Poland until 1939; the population was brutalised and terrorised by the imposed
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Soviet rule, and the existing familiar structures of society were destroyed.[89]
Historian Erich Haberer notes that many survived and made sense of the "totalitarian atomization" of society by
seeking conformity with communism.[90] As a result, by the time of the German invasion in 1941, many had
come to see conformity with a totalitarian regime as socially acceptable behaviour; thus, people simply
transferred their allegiance to the German regime when it arrived.[90] Some who had collaborated with the
Soviet regime sought to divert attention from themselves by naming Jews as collaborators and killing them.[91]
Rumbula
In November 1941 Himmler was dissatisfied with the pace of the exterminations in Latvia, as he intended to
move Jews from Germany into the area. He assigned SS-Obergruppenfhrer Jeckeln, one of the perpetrators of
the Babi Yar massacre, to liquidate the Riga ghetto. Jeckeln selected a site about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi)
southeast of Riga near the Rumbula railway station, and had 300 Russian prisoners of war prepare the site by
digging pits in which to bury the victims. Jeckeln organised around 1,700 men, including 300 members of the
Arajs Kommando, 50 German SD men, and 50 Latvian guards, most of whom had already participated in mass
killings of civilians. These troops were supplemented by Latvians, including members of the Riga city police,
battalion police, and ghetto guards. Around 1,500 able-bodied Jews would be spared execution so their slave
labour could be exploited; a thousand men were relocated to a fenced-off area within the ghetto and 500 women
were temporarily housed in a prison and later moved to a separate nearby ghetto, where they were put to work
mending uniforms.[92]
Although Rumbula was on the rail line, Jeckeln decided that the victims should travel on foot from Riga to the
execution ground. Trucks and buses were arranged to carry children and the elderly. The victims were told that
they were being relocated, and were advised to bring up to 20 kilograms (44 lb) of possessions. The first day of
executions, 30 November 1941, began with the perpetrators rousing and assembling the victims at 4:00 am. The
victims were moved in columns of a thousand people toward the execution ground. As they walked, some SS
men went up and down the line, shooting people who could not keep up the pace or who tried to run away or
rest.[93]
When the columns neared the prepared execution site, the victims were driven some 270 metres (300 yd) from
the road into the forest, where any possessions that had not yet been abandoned were seized. Here the victims
were split into groups of fifty and taken deeper into the forest, near the pits, where they were ordered to strip.
The victims were driven into the prepared trenches, made to lie down, and shot in the head or the back of the
neck by members of Jeckeln's bodyguard. Around 13,000 Jews from Riga were killed at the pits that day, along
with a thousand Jews from Berlin who had just arrived by train. On the second day of the operation, 8
December 1941, the remaining 10,000 Jews of Riga were killed in the same way. About a thousand were killed
on the streets of the city or on the way to the site, bringing the total deaths for the two-day extermination to
25,000 people. For his part in organising the massacre, Jeckeln was promoted to Leader of the SS Upper
Section, Ostland.[94]
Einsatzgruppe B, C, and D did not immediately follow Einsatzgruppe A's example in systematically killing all
Jews in their areas. The Einsatzgruppe commanders, with the exception of Einsatzgruppe A's Stahlecker, were
of the opinion by the fall of 1941 that it was impossible to kill the entire Jewish population of the Soviet Union
in one sweep, and thought the killings should stop.[95] An Einsatzgruppe report dated 17 September advised
that the Germans would be better off using any skilled Jews as labourers rather than shooting them.[95] Also, in
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some areas poor weather and a lack of transportation led to a slowdown in deportations of Jews from points
further west.[96] Thus, an interval passed between the first round of Einsatzgruppen massacres in summer and
fall, and what American historian Raul Hilberg called the second sweep, which started in December 1941 and
lasted into the summer of 1942.[97] During the interval, the surviving Jews were forced into ghettos.[98]
Einsatzgruppe A had already murdered almost all Jews in its area, so it shifted its operations into Belarus to
assist Einsatzgruppe B. In Dnepropetrovsk in February 1942, Einsatzgruppe D reduced the city's Jewish
population from 30,000 to 702 over the course of four days.[99] The German Order Police and local
collaborators provided the extra manpower needed to perform all the shootings. Haberer wrote that, as in the
Baltic states, the Germans could not have killed so many Jews so quickly without local help. He points out that
the ratio of Order Police to auxiliaries was 1 to 10 in both Ukraine and Belarus. In rural areas the proportion
was 1 to 20. This meant that most Ukrainian and Belarusian Jews were killed by fellow Ukrainians and
Belarusians commanded by German officers rather than by Germans.[100]
The second wave of exterminations in the Soviet Union met with armed resistance in some areas, though the
chance of success was poor. Weapons were typically primitive or home-made. Communications were
impossible between ghettos in various cities, so there was no way to create a unified strategy. Few in the ghetto
leadership supported resistance for fear of reprisals on the ghetto residents. Mass break-outs were sometimes
attempted, though survival in the forest was nearly impossible due to the lack of food and the fact that escapees
were often tracked down and killed.[101]
After a time, Himmler found that the killing methods used by the
Einsatzgruppen were inefficient: they were costly, demoralising for the
troops, and sometimes did not kill the victims quickly enough.[102]
Many of the troops found the massacres to be difficult if not impossible
to perform. Some of the perpetrators suffered physical and mental health
problems, and many turned to drink.[103] As much as possible, the
Einsatzgruppen leaders militarized the genocide. The historian Christian
Ingrao notes an attempt was made to make the shootings a collective act
without individual responsibility. Framing the shootings in this way was
Nazi gas van used to murder people
not psychologically sufficient for every perpetrator to feel absolved of
at Chemno extermination camp
guilt.[104] Browning notes three categories of potential perpetrators:
those who were eager to participate right from the start, those who
participated in spite of moral qualms because they were ordered to do so, and a significant minority who refused
to take part.[105] A few men spontaneously became excessively brutal in their killing methods and their zeal for
the task. Commander of Einsatzgruppe D, SS-Gruppenfhrer Otto Ohlendorf, particularly noted this propensity
towards excess, and ordered that any man who was too eager to participate or too brutal should not perform any
further executions.[106]
During a visit to Minsk in August 1941, Himmler witnessed an Einsatzgruppen mass execution first-hand and
concluded that shooting Jews was too stressful for his men.[107] By November he made arrangements for any
SS men suffering ill health from having participated in executions to be provided with rest and mental health
care.[108] He also decided a transition should be made to gassing the victims, especially the women and
children, and ordered the recruitment of expendable native auxiliaries who could assist with the murders.
[108][109] Gas vans, which had been used previously to kill mental patients, began to see service by all four main
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Einsatzgruppen from 1942.[110] However, the gas vans were not popular with the Einsatzkommandos, because
removing the dead bodies from the van and burying them was a horrible ordeal. Prisoners or auxiliaries were
often assigned to do this task so as to spare the SS men the trauma.[111] Some of the early mass killings at
extermination camps used carbon monoxide fumes produced by diesel engines, similar to the method used in
gas vans, but by as early as September 1941 experiments were begun at Auschwitz using Zyklon B, a
cyanide-based pesticide gas.[112]
Plans for the total eradication of the Jewish population of Europeeleven million peoplewere formalised at
the Wannsee Conference, held on 20 January 1942. Some would be worked to death, and the rest would be
killed in the implementation of the Final Solution of the Jewish question (German: Die Endlsung der
Judenfrage).[113] Permanent killing centres at Auschwitz, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and other Nazi
extermination camps replaced mobile death squads as the primary method of mass killing.[114] The
Einsatzgruppen remained active, however, and were put to work fighting partisans, particularly in Belarus.[115]
After the fall of Stalingrad in February 1943, Himmler realised that Germany would likely lose the war, and
ordered the formation of a special task force, Sonderkommando 1005, under SS-Standartenfhrer Paul Blobel.
The unit's assignment was to visit mass graves all along the Eastern Front to exhume bodies and burn them in
an attempt to cover up the genocide. The task remained unfinished at the end of the war, and many mass graves
remain unmarked and unexcavated.[116]
By 1944 the Red Army had begun to push the German forces out of Eastern Europe, and the Einsatzgruppen
retreated alongside the Wehrmacht. By late 1944, most Einsatzgruppen personnel had been folded into
Waffen-SS combat units or transferred to permanent death camps. Hilberg estimates that between 1941 and
1945 the Einsatzgruppen and related agencies killed more than two million people, including 1.3 million
Jews.[117] The total number of Jews murdered during the war is estimated at 5.5 to six million people.[118]
According to research by German historians Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cppers, an Einsatzgruppe
was created in 1942 to kill the half-million Jews living in the British Mandate of Palestine and the 50,000 Jews
of Egypt. Einsatzgruppe Egypt, standing by in Athens, was prepared to go to Palestine once German forces
arrived there.[52] SS-Obersturmbannfhrer Walter Rauff was to lead the unit.[119] Given its small staff of only
24 men, Einsatzgruppe Egypt would have needed help from local residents and from the Afrika Korps to
complete their assignment. Its members planned to enlist collaborators from the local population to perform the
killings under German leadership. [120] Former Iraqi prime minister Rashid Ali al-Gaylani and the Grand Mufti
of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini played roles, engaging in antisemitic radio propaganda, preparing to recruit
volunteers, and in raising an Arab-German Battalion that would also follow Einsatzgruppe Egypt to the Middle
East.[121] Commander of the Afrika Korps Field Marshal Erwin Rommel promised the co-operation of his corps
in these assignments.[122] In an agreement signed in July 1942 between the two groups, Rommel promised
logistical support for Einsatzgruppe Egypt, which was to serve under command of the Wehrmacht.[123] The
group never left Greece, however; the plans were set aside after the Allied victory at the Battle of El
Alamein.[124]
Had Operation Sea Lion, the German plan for an invasion of the United Kingdom been launched, six
Einsatzgruppen were scheduled to follow the invasion force into Britain. They were provided with a list called
die Sonderfahndungsliste, G.B. ("Special Search List, G.B"), known as The Black Book after the war, of 2,300
people to be immediately imprisoned by the Gestapo. The list included Churchill, members of the cabinet,
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prominent journalists and authors, and members of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile.[125]
The Einsatzgruppen kept official records of many of their massacres and

provided detailed reports to their superiors. The Jger Report, filed by
Commander SS-Standartenfhrer Karl Jger on 1 December 1941 to his
superior, Stahlecker (head of Einsatzgruppe A), covers the activities of
Einsatzkommando III in Lithuania over the five-month period from 2
July 1941 to 25 November 1941.[126]
Jger's report provides an almost daily running total of the liquidations
of 137,346 people, the vast majority of them Jews.[126] The report
documents the exact date and place of massacres, the number of victims,
and their breakdown into categories (Jews, Communists, criminals, and
so on).[127] Women were shot from the very beginning, but initially in
fewer numbers than men.[128] Children were first included in the tally
starting in mid-August, when 3,207 people were murdered in Rokikis
on 1516 August 1941.[127] For the most part the report does not give
any military justification for the killings; people were killed solely
Page 6 of the Jger Report shows the
because they were Jews.[127] In total, the report lists over 100 executions
number of people killed by
in 71 different locations. Jger wrote: "I can state today that the goal of
Einsatzkommando III alone in the
solving the Jewish problem in Lithuania has been reached by
five-month period covered by the
Einsatzkommando 3. There are no more Jews in Lithuania, apart from
report as 137,346.
working Jews and their families."[126] In a February 1942 addendum to
the report, Jger increased the total number of victims to 138,272, giving
a breakdown of 48,252 men, 55,556 women, and 34,464 children. Only 1,851 of the victims were
non-Jewish.[129]
Jger escaped capture by the Allies when the war ended. He lived in Heidelberg under his own name until his
report was discovered in March 1959.[130] Arrested and charged, Jger committed suicide on 22 June 1959 in a
Hohenasperg prison while awaiting trial for his crimes.[131]
The killings took place with the knowledge and support of the German Army in the east.[132] On 10 October
1941 Field Marshal Walther von Reichenau drafted an order to be read to the German Sixth Army on the
Eastern Front. Now known as the Severity Order, it read in part:
The most important objective of this campaign against the Jewish-Bolshevik system is the complete
destruction of its sources of power and the extermination of the Asiatic influence in European
civilization ... In this eastern theatre, the soldier is not only a man fighting in accordance with the
rules of the art of war, but also the ruthless standard bearer of a national conception ... For this
reason the soldier must learn fully to appreciate the necessity for the severe but just retribution that
must be meted out to the subhuman species of Jewry.[133]
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Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt of Army Group South expressed his "complete agreement" with the order.
He sent out a circular to the generals under his command urging them to release their own versions and to
impress upon their troops the need to exterminate the Jews.[134] General Erich von Manstein, in an order to his
troops on 20 November, stated that "the Jewish-Bolshevist system must be exterminated once and for all."[132]
Manstein sent a letter to Einsatzgruppe D commanding officer Ohlendorf complaining that it was unfair that the
SS was keeping all of the murdered Jews' wristwatches for themselves instead of sharing with the army.[135]
Beyond this trivial complaint, the Army and the Einsatzgruppen worked closely and effectively. On 6 July 1941
Einsatzkommando 4b of Einsatzgruppe C reported that "Armed forces surprisingly welcome hostility against
the Jews".[136] On 8 September, Einsatzgruppe D reported that relations with the German Army were
"excellent".[136] In the same month, Stahlecker of Einsatzgruppe A wrote that Army Group North had been
exemplary in co-operating with the exterminations and that relations with the 4th Panzer Army, commanded by
General Erich Hoepner, were "very close, almost cordial".[137] In the south, the Romanian Army worked closely
with Einsatzgruppe D to massacre Ukrainian Jews,[98] killing around 26,000 Jews in the Odessa massacre.[138]
The German historian Peter Longerich thinks it probable that the Wehrmacht, along with the Organization of
Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), incited the Lviv pogroms, during which 8,500 to 9,000 Jews were killed by the
native population and Einsatzgruppe C in July 1941.[139] Moreover, most people on the home front in Germany
had some idea of the massacres being committed by the Einsatzgruppen.[140] British historian Hugh
Trevor-Roper noted that although Himmler had forbidden photographs of the killings, it was common for both
the men of the Einsatzgruppen and for bystanders to take pictures to send to their loved ones, which he felt
suggested widespread approval of the massacres.[141]
The Wehrmacht tried to justify their considerable involvement in the Einsatzgruppen massacres as being
anti-partisan operations rather than racist attacks, but Hillgruber wrote that this was just an excuse. He states
that those German generals who claimed that the Einsatzgruppen were a necessary anti-partisan response were
lying, and maintained that the slaughter of about 2.2 million defenceless civilians for reasons of racist ideology
cannot be justified.[142]
After the close of the World War II, 24 senior leaders of the Einsatzgruppen were prosecuted in the
Einsatzgruppen Trial in 194748, part of the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials held under United States military
authority. The men were charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes, and membership in the SS (which
had been declared a criminal organization). Fourteen death sentences and two life sentences were among the
judgments; only four executions were carried out, on 7 June 1951; the rest were reduced to lesser sentences.
Four additional Einsatzgruppe leaders were later tried and executed by other nations.[143]
Several Einsatzgruppen leaders, including Ohlendorf, claimed at the trial to have received an order before
Operation Barbarossa requiring them to murder all Soviet Jews.[144] To date no evidence has been found that
such an order was ever issued.[145] German prosecutor Alfred Streim noted that if such an order had been given,
post-war courts would only have been able to convict the Einsatzgruppen leaders as accomplices to mass
murder. However, if it could be established that the Einsatzgruppen had committed mass murder without orders,
then they could have been convicted as perpetrators of mass murder, and hence could have received stiffer
sentences, including capital punishment.[146]
Streim postulated that the existence of an early comprehensive order was a fabrication created for use in
Ohlendorf's defence. This theory is now widely accepted by historians.[147] Longerich notes that most orders
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received by the Einsatzgruppen leadersespecially when they were being

ordered to carry out criminal activitieswere vague, and couched in
terminology that had a specific meaning for members of the regime. Leaders
were given briefings about the need to be "severe" and "firm"; all Jews were to
be viewed as potential enemies that had to be dealt with ruthlessly.[148] British
historian Sir Ian Kershaw argues that Hitler's apocalyptic remarks before
Barbarossa about the necessity for a war without mercy to "annihilate" the
forces of "Judeo-Bolshevism" were interpreted by Einsatzgruppen commanders
as permission and encouragement to engage in extreme antisemitic violence,
with each Einsatzgruppen commander to use his own discretion about how far
he was prepared to go.[149]
Most of the perpetrators of Nazi war crimes were never charged, and returned
unremarked to civilian life. The West German Central Prosecution Office of
Otto Ohlendorf, 1943
Nazi War Criminals only charged about a hundred former Einsatzgruppe
members with war crimes.[150] And as time went on, it became more difficult to
obtain prosecutions; witnesses grew older and were less likely to be able to offer valuable testimony. Funding
for trials was inadequate, and the governments of Austria and Germany became less interested in obtaining
convictions for wartime events, preferring to forget the Nazi past.[151]
Functionalism versus intentionalism

Glossary of Nazi Germany
List of Nazi Party leaders and officials
Porajmos
Citations
1. LEO Dictionary.
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica.
3. Edeiken 2000.
4. Streim 1989, p. 436.
5. Longerich 2012, pp. 405, 412.
6. Nuremberg Trial, Vol. 20, Day 194.
7. Longerich 2010, pp. 138141.
8. Longerich 2012, p. 425.
9. Longerich 2010, p. 144.
10. Evans 2008, p. 17.
11. Browning & Matthus 2004, pp. 1618.
12. Longerich 2010, p. 143.
13. Longerich 2010, pp. 144145.
14. Longerich 2012, p. 429.
15. Evans 2008, p. 15.
16. Longerich 2012, pp. 430432.
17. Weale 2012, p. 225.
18. Evans 2008, p. 18.
19. Gerwarth 2011, p. 147.

20. Longerich 2010, p. 146.
21. Evans 2008, pp. 2526.
22. Weale 2012, pp. 227228.
23. Weale 2012, pp. 242245.
24. Hillgruber 1989, p. 95.
25. Longerich 2012, pp. 521522.
26. Hillgruber 1989, pp. 9596.
27. Rhodes 2002, pp. 14, 48.
31. Longerich 2010, p. 181.
32. Longerich 2010, p. 185.
33. Rees 1997, p. 177.
34. Rhodes 2002, p. 15.
35. Browning 1998, pp. 1012.
36. Einsatzgruppen judgment, pp. 414416.
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37. Browning 1998, pp. 135136, 141142.

38. Robertson.
39. Browning 1998, p. 10.
40. Longerich 2010, p. 186.
41. Browning & Matthus 2004, pp. 225226.
42. MacLean 1999, p. 23.
43. Museum of Tolerance.
44. Longerich 2010, p. 419.
45. Dams & Stolle 2012, p. 168.
46. Conze, Frei et al. 2010.
47. Crowe 2007, p. 267.
48. Mallmann & Cppers 2006, p. 97.
49. Larsen 2008, p. xi.
50. Shelach 1989, p. 1169.
51. Longerich 2010, p. 197.
52. Mallmann, Cppers & Smith 2010, p. 130.
53. Longerich 2012, p. 523.
54. Longerich 2010, p. 198.
56. Hilberg 1985, p. 368.
57. Headland 1992, pp. 6270.
58. Urban 2001.
59. Longerich 2012, p. 526.
60. Haberer 2001, p. 68.
61. Longerich 2010, pp. 193195.
62. Longerich 2010, p. 208.
63. Longerich 2010, pp. 196202.
64. Longerich 2010, p. 207.
65. Longerich 2010, p. 208, 211.
66. Longerich 2010, p. 211.
67. Longerich 2010, pp. 211212.
68. Longerich 2010, pp. 212213.
69. Headland 1992, pp. 5758.
70. Rhodes 2002, p. 179.
71. Evans 2008, p. 227.
72. Weale 2012, p. 315.
73. Rhodes 2002, pp. 172173.
74. Rhodes 2002, pp. 173176.
75. Rhodes 2002, p. 178.
76. Weale 2012, p. 317.
78. Rhodes 2002, p. 41.
79. Haberer 2001, pp. 6768.
80. Rees 1997, p. 179.
81. Haberer 2001, pp. 6869.
82. Haberer 2001, p. 69.
83. Haberer 2001, p. 71.
84. Haberer 2001, pp. 6970.
85. Haberer 2001, p. 70.
86. Rees 1997, p. 182.
87. Haberer 2001, p. 66.
88. Haberer 2001, p. 73.
89. Haberer 2001, pp. 7475.
90. Haberer 2001, p. 76.
91. Haberer 2001, p. 77.
92. Rhodes 2002, pp. 206209.

93. Rhodes 2002, pp. 208210.
94. Rhodes 2002, pp. 210214.
95. Hilberg 1985, p. 342.
96. Longerich 2012, p. 549.
97. Hilberg 1985, pp. 342343.
98. Marrus 2000, p. 64.
99. Hilberg 1985, p. 372.
100. Haberer 2001, p. 78.
101. Longerich 2010, p. 353354.
102. Rees 1997, p. 197.
103. Rhodes 2002, pp. 52, 124, 168.
104. Ingrao 2013, pp. 199200.
105. Rhodes 2002, p. 163.
106. Rhodes 2002, pp. 165166.
107. Longerich 2012, pp. 547548.
108. Rhodes 2002, p. 167.
109. Longerich 2012, p. 551.
110. Longerich 2012, p. 548.
111. Rhodes 2002, p. 243.
112. Longerich 2010, pp. 280281.
113. Longerich 2012, pp. 555556.
114. Longerich 2010, pp. 279280.
115. Rhodes 2002, p. 248.
116. Rhodes 2002, pp. 258260, 262.
117. Rhodes 2002, p. 257.
118. Evans 2008, p. 318.
120. Mallmann, Cppers & Smith 2010, pp. 124125.
121. Mallmann, Cppers & Smith 2010, pp. 127130.
122. Weinberg 2011.
124. Krumenacker 2006.
125. Shirer 1960, pp. 783784.
126. Rhodes 2002, p. 215.
127. Rhodes 2002, p. 126.
128. Longerich 2010, p. 230.
129. Rhodes 2002, p. 216.
130. Rabitz 2011.
131. Rhodes 2002, p. 276.
132. Hillgruber 1989, p. 102.
133. Craig 1973, p. 10.
134. Mayer 1988, p. 250.
135. Smelser & Davies 2008, p. 43.
136. Hilberg 1985, p. 301.
137. Hilberg 1985, p. 30.
138. Marrus 2000, p. 79.
139. Longerich 2010, p. 194.
140. Marrus 2000, p. 88.
141. Klee, Dressen & Riess 1991, p. xi.
142. Hillgruber 1989, pp. 102103.
143. Rhodes 2002, pp. 274275.
144. Longerich 2010, p. 187.
145. Longerich 2010, pp. 187189.
146. Streim 1989, p. 439.
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147. Longerich 2010, p. 188.

148. Longerich 2010, p. 189190.
149. Kershaw 2008, pp. 258259.
150. Rhodes 2002, pp. 275276.

151. Segev 2010, pp. 226, 250, 376.
Books and journal articles

Browning, Christopher; Matthus, Jrgen (2004). The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish
Policy, September 1939 March 1942. Comprehensive History of the Holocaust. Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-1327-2.
Conze, Eckart; Frei, Norbert; Hayes, Peter; Zimmermann, Moshe (2010). Das Amt und die Vergangenheit : deutsche
Diplomaten im Dritten Reich und in der Bundesrepublik (in German). Munich: Karl Blessing.
ISBN 978-3-89667-430-2.
Craig, William (1973). Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad. Old Saybrook, CT: Konecky & Konecky.
ISBN 1-56852-368-8.
Crowe, David (2007) [2004]. Oskar Schindler: The Untold Account of his Life, Wartime Activities and the True Story
Behind the List. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-00253-5.
Dams, Carsten; Stolle, Michael (2012) [2008]. Die Gestapo: Herrschaft und Terror im Dritten Reich. Becksche Reihe
(in German). Munich: Beck. ISBN 978-3-406-62898-6.
Evans, Richard J. (2008). The Third Reich at War. New York: Penguin Group. ISBN 978-0-14-311671-4.
Gerwarth, Robert (2011). Hitler's Hangman: The Life of Heydrich. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
ISBN 978-0-300-11575-8.
Haberer, Erich (2001). "Intention and Feasibility: Reflections on Collaboration and the Final Solution". East
European Jewish Affairs 31 (2): 6481. doi:10.1080/13501670108577951. OCLC 210897979.
Headland, Ronald (1992). Messages of Murder: A Study of the Reports of the Security Police and the Security
Service. London: Associated University Presses. ISBN 0-8386-3418-4.
Hilberg, Raul (1985). The Destruction of the European Jews. New York: Holmes & Meier. ISBN 978-0-8419-0832-1.
Hillgruber, Andreas (1989). "War in the East and the Extermination of the Jews". In Marrus, Michael. Part 3, The
"Final Solution": The Implementation of Mass Murder, Volume 1. The Nazi Holocaust. Westpoint, CT: Meckler.
pp. 85114. ISBN 0-88736-266-4.
Ingrao, Christian (2013). Believe and Destroy: Intellectuals in the SS War Machine. Malden, MA: Polity.
ISBN 978-0-7456-6026-4.
Kershaw, Ian (2008). Hitler, the Germans, and the Final Solution. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.
ISBN 978-0-300-12427-9.
Klee, Ernst; Dressen, Willi; Riess, Volker (1991). "The Good Old Days" The Holocaust as Seen by its Perpetrators
and Bystanders. Trans. Burnstone, Deborah. New York: MacMillan. ISBN 0-02-917425-2. (originally published as
Klee, Ernst; Dreen, Willi; Rie, Volker (Hrsg.) (1988). Schne Zeiten. Judenmord aus der Sicht der Tter und
Gaffer. (in German). Frankfurt / Main: S. Fischer. ISBN 978-3-10-039304-3.
Larsen, Stein Ugelvik (2008). Meldungen aus Norwegen 19401945: Die geheimen Lagesberichte des Befehlshabers
der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD in Norwegen, 1 (in German). Munich: Oldenburg. ISBN 978-3-486-55891-3.
Longerich, Peter (2010). Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews. Oxford; New York: Oxford
University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-280436-5.
Longerich, Peter (2012). Heinrich Himmler: A Life. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
ISBN 978-0-19-959232-6.
MacLean, French L. (1999). The Field Men: The SS Officers Who Led the EinsatzkommandosThe Nazi Mobile
Killing Units. Schiffer Military History. Madison, WI: Schiffer. ISBN 978-0-7643-0754-6.
Mallmann, Klaus-Michael; Cppers, Martin (2006). Crescent and Swastika: The Third Reich, the Arabs and
Palestine. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-3-534-19729-3.
Mallmann, Klaus-Michael; Cppers, Martin; Smith, Krista (2010). Nazi Palestine: The Plans for the Extermination of
the Jews in Palestine. New York: Enigma. ISBN 1-929631-93-6.
Marrus, Michael (2000). The Holocaust in History. Toronto: Key Porter. ISBN 978-1-55263-120-1.
Mayer, Arno J (1988). Why Did The Heavens Not Darken?. New York: Pantheon. ISBN 0-394-57154-1.
Rees, Laurence (1997). The Nazis: A Warning From History. Foreword by Sir Ian Kershaw. New York: New Press.
ISBN 1-56584-551-X.
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Rhodes, Richard (2002). Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust. New York:
Vintage Books. ISBN 0-375-70822-7.
Segev, Tom (2010). Simon Wiesenthal: The Life and Legends. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-51946-5.
Shelach, Menachem (1989). "Sajmite: An Extermination Camp in Serbia". In Marrus, Michael Robert. The Victims
of the Holocaust: Historical Articles on the Destruction of European Jews 2. Westport, CT: Meckler.
Shirer, William L. (1960). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York: Simon & Schuster.
ISBN 978-0-671-62420-0.
Smelser, Ronald; Davies, Edward (2008). The Myth of the Eastern Front: The Nazi-Soviet War in American Popular
Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-83365-3.
Streim, Alfred (1989). "The Tasks of the SS Einsatzgruppen, pages 436454". In Marrus, Michael. The Nazi
Holocaust, Part 3, The "Final Solution": The Implementation of Mass Murder, Volume 2. Westpoint, CT: Meckler.
ISBN 0-88736-266-4.
Weale, Adrian (2012). Army of Evil: A History of the SS. New York; Toronto: Penguin Group.
ISBN 978-0-451-23791-0.
Weinberg, Gerhard (July 2011). "Some Myths of World War II" (PDF). Journal of Military History (75): 701718.
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/einsatz/index.html) The Holocaust Education & Archive
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